Dodge: Training Progress Table

[koalathebear]

It's time to do Dodge's progress table. I hadn't bothered doing it because he was just so timid and shut down that it didn't seem worth it but here goes.

Progress Table

Criteria/Behaviour	Day 1: 28 October	Day 8: 4 November
Doorway etiquette	Very timid - can't get him to even go through doorways. Once through, if you walk past him to close the door - he dashes out again so you have to start all over again	Much better - is getting better at going through doorways and I can walk past him to close the door without him dashing out. Doorway manners should not be an issue as he is responsive and will come back if he has dashed through prematurely
Car travel	Very, very well-behaved and quiet - although he does not like jumping in and out of the car.	Still an excellent and very quiet, well-behaved car traveller - although he's still not a fan of jumping in and out. He endures having his car harness put on him
House-training	So far so good - wee'd on the book shelf on day #2	Very good. No accidents since day #2 - and even day #2 was because he was locked inside for too long because a tradesman was in the backyard. He toilets very promptly when we send the dogs outside to toilet and knows enough to let himself out the dog door when he needs to go.
Mealtime manners	Very timid - won't even come near us even with the food there so there's no risk of him gulping the food down.	Getting better at approaching us but he's still very timid and will only approach the food if we back off by about a metre
Basic focus work (Watch), sit and drop	Very timid and shut down. Appears to have absolutely no training.	Now he is more settled, I still think that he has had no training - it's not possible to teach him to sit because if you hold food out and try to lure him - he backs up several metres and it's hard to lure from a distance. Nonetheless, on the plus side - he is getting much, much more trusting and in time, it should be possible to lure him when he's standing closer. Also, he is very handler focused and makes excellent eye contact so once he is more confident and has more trust, he should be very trainable.
Go to your mat/crate/bed	He barked like a completely demented maniac in the kitchen wire crate and also when we first put him in the travel crate next to our bed. He settled much more when the crate was put next to our bed and by day #3 or day #4, Dan had migrated him to the soft crate and put the crate near the door of our bedroom. Dodge does not go to his crate on command but Dan is able to persuade him into the crate in the evenings with encouragemen tand patting the inside of the mat. He then settles and goes to sleep and does not complain.	Getting very good. He isn't doing it on a purely verbal cue yet, but he is getting better. Dan migrated the crate out of our bedroom and down the hall a short way so that he was in the doorway of the spare room i.e. he could still see the lights from our bedroom and hear us but could not see us. He whinged for about 5 minutes but then settled to sleep. I am hopeful that he will do it on cue soon - he certainly seems to understand that bed time is when dogs go to their crates to sleep.
1-2 camera-friendly tricks	None. Untrained and also very timid and shut down	Still too early - we are still in the early confidence building stages of his training where we are just teaching him to be comfortable around people, to have people walking past him without paying any attention to him. He sort of needs to be ignored and not fussed over until the point at which he feels more confident.
Assess friendliness/neutrality	Very, very friendly with dogs. Very uncertain with humans, especially strangers. Absolutely no aggressive behaviours. Will definitely need to be in a family that already has a dog.	Continues to get along very well with all dogs including large and dogs and small white fluffies. He also seems fine around cats - displaying no interest in them.
Assess other behaviours	Very, very skittish and darting around all the time. Marked once on the book case.	No more marking. Displays signs of separation anxiety when left alone in the crate/yard so we will have to work on that. Much less skittish and timid but still very wary of strangers. Has a habit of wanting to put your hand in his mouth - there's no actual mouthing but he seems to like having your hand in his mouth. On day #8 he also learned how to use the dog door, which is great. He is also untroubled by ceiling fans, noisy appliances (mixer, washing machine, dryer, hand-held vacuum cleaner)

It's still early days, but I think that he has made excellent progress given that it's only been 8 days, his obviously troubled background and lack of training.